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"You."

Heat flashes across his face. "You can't just say things like that."

"Oh, I can." I grin. "I'd hate to damage my reputation."

Before he can roll his eyes at me, I reach for his hand, my fingers circling the medical band around his wrist. The second I touch it, the tendons in his wrist tighten against my fingertips in a way I find far too interesting.

"Besides, you've been telling me all about Sero politics. It looks like someone did their homework for tonight."

Rowan glances down at our joined hands. "Just like you did, apparently."

Every reaction shows on his face before he can stop it, a hesitation pulling at his mouth whenever eye contact lingers a second too long.

Fuck.

He has absolutely no idea what he looks like right now.

A quick shake of his head answers me before he looks back down at the image again, warm skin pressing against mine while he still doesn't pull away, and I like the way he reacts every time I touch him far too much.

A grin pulls at my mouth. "So my little mouse fought off monsters in the Ward and played the Noctis on the side?" I drag my thumb along the edge of his medical band before finally letting go of his wrist. "Since when have you been playing?"

Rowan shrugs like he doesn't really want to answer, which of course only makes me more interested. "Since I was six, technically, but only the cello at first. Nobody on Düren owns a Noctis. They're too expensive. Mostly wealthy families use them during ceremonies."

"Hmm." I let my thumb drag once more across the inside of his wrist, feeling the way he tries not to react to it. I like making him squirm. "So how'd you end up obsessed with one?"

A faint flush creeps back into his cheeks. "I saw one once." His voice softens around the memory, and fuck, I don't think I've heard him sound this unguarded before. "An Imperial prince died when I was eight, and they broadcast the burial ceremony across the Reach." He glances at his drink before continuing. "There was this musician standing beside the procession playing the Noctis, and I remember thinking I'd never heard anything so beautiful."

Before he can continue, I reach for the bottle left on our table and top up both glasses.

Rowan looks up at me, momentarily pulled from the memory. He just sits there, eyes distant, still somewhere in that funeral procession. Then his thumb drags against the side of the glass. "I knew that was what I wanted to play."

I study him, my hand still resting loosely around his wrist while I trace the edge of the medical band with my fingertips. At some point during the conversation, Rowan stopped trying to pull his hand away from me. Now he just lets me touch him while he talks, pulse fluttering lightly beneath my hand every time my fingers brush the sensitive skin of his wrist.

"And your parents just let you obsess over music after that?"

A smile flickers across his mouth, his shoulders loosening as warmth slips into his expression for the first time since he sat down across from me. "My ma did. She found this damaged second-hand cello when I was little. It was missing strings and the bridge was cracked, but I still thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

I let my hand slide from his wrist to his fingertips, tracing across his skin before dragging back up the inside of his forearm. Rowan goes still the second I touch him like that.

"You practiced that much?"

"All the time." His cheeks color. "There wasn't much else to do."

I slide my hand fully over his then, giving him plenty of time to stop me. He doesn't.

His thumb drags against the side of the glass while he stares down at his drink and breathes out quietly through his nose. "I used to fall asleep listening to recordings. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night thinking about passages I couldn't get right. I dreamed about music constantly."

I can't stop picturing it. Little Rowan trapped behind those walls with a broken cello and impossible dreams, falling asleep to recordings and dreaming about music, somehow ending up here anyway. And fuck if that doesn't make me want him even more.

Rowan finally takes another drink. His fingers shake around the glass before he sets it back down too carefully against the table, and the second he notices me watching, he pulls his hand back into his lap like that'll somehow stop me from noticing how fucking cute he is.

Fucking cute. Or fucking dangerous.

Dad thinks he might be the latter. My dick most certainly thinks he's the first. And my brain, which occasionally short-circuits, hasn't made up its mind yet.

The booth falls quiet while the noise from downstairs pulses faintly through the walls between us.

Then Rowan glances down at the amber liquid in his glass before finally asking, "Why did you invite me to that party?"